giovedì 13 giugno 2013

Glenn Hauser logs June 11-12, 2013

** ANTARCTICA [non]. 15480, June 12 at 1211, CNR1 with poor signal // jammers on 15195, 15250 etc., but Aoki shows 15480 is not a jammer! But a regular service at 09-13. We are vigilantly looking out for LRA36 and its tiny signal on 15476, currently only at 18-21 UT weekdays (maybe). Ron Howard also heard TWR, Swaziland or South Africa? on 15475.0, June 10 at 1217-1309+ announcing it`s a transmitter test, we hope never to be used when LRA36 be on (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** AUSTRALIA [and non]. 11665, June 12 at 1300, only hear weak signal from MALAYSIA; Ron Howard reported that RA Chinese had vacated 11665 as of June 11, after two months of collision, but to where? I hunt around today but don`t find a replacement on 25m; however reception from DU is subnormal, and it`s hard even to hear the // 9965 via Palau.

Finally found the answer here:
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/chinese/radio/waystolisten
``Shortwave frequency changes for English Asia and Chinese services
From 11 June, 2013 our 13:00 to 15:30 (UTC) services for China will shift frequencies from 11,665 kHz to 12,085 kHz (Chinese) and 11,835 (English).``

The English portion is 1430-1530. 12085 is not yet in Aoki, but shows a just-right sesquihour hole at 1300-1430 between AWR Sri Lanka and FEBC Philippines. Maybe I would have heard it if I searched that far up (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** BANGLADESH. 15505, June 12 at *1356:10, BB carrier on, 1356:36 add tone test, 1358:18 IS plays almost four times before faded down in time for 6 pips to end at 1359:40.5, and opening Urdu with usual theme music; signal improved to poor today (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CHINA. No Firedrake heard on 13795 or anywhere June 12, just CNR1 jamming, before 1300:
15565, poor at 1257, ID by // 11825 but out of synch
16160, good at 1258
16920, good at 1258, 1300 timesignal and continues with Beijing ID, etc., until cut off at 1300:34*

Before 1400 June 12:
17450, very poor at 1350
16920, very good at 1351
16360, very poor at 1350
15800, very good at 1351, a reverb apart from 16920
15560, very poor at 1351 // 15195, 15105, etc., but none in the 14s, 13s or 12s (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CHINA [non]. 13650, June 12 at 1202, CRI English with news about South & North Korea, mixing with NK`s NA, as VOK with KCBS service is also here per Aoki, in Korean, while CRI at 11-13 is via ALBANIA. Commies vs Commies! You`d think the good buddies would coördinate their broadcasts better. The pair are also making a SAH of about 160 beats per minute = two and two-thirds Hz, but it`s varying slightly, due to Doppler or unstable transmitter(s)? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA. It appears RadioCuba after several days has finally fixed (or turned off) the RHC transmitter with severe carrier instability --- at least I haven`t found it on previous spots, tho they could have swapped it to some frequency I missed. June 12 at 0055, 6165 English carrier is already on and steady, along with 6000, and Spanish already on 6100.

Next check at 0525: 6165 is steady; 6125 is undermodulated and distorted; 6060 is OK; 6010 is slightly unstable but not like 6165 et al. had been. At 1153, 9850 is also steady now with report from Santiago but with some hum which continues even once back from the Wake Up With Cuba studio (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** CUBA [non]. 7405, June 12 at 0522, R. Martí is well atop wall-of-noise jamming, attempting to prevent DentroCubans from learning the exact start times of every ML baseball sillyballgame earlier this evening, as RM is conveying, why? Where`s the propaganda we`re paying for?? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** EAST TURKISTAN. 17540, June 12 at 0514, CRI English poor with flutter; also German on 17720 and stronger 17820 which is // but a good two seconds ahead of 17720. Aoki shows 17540 and 17720 are Kashgar, while 17820 is Urumqi (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** GREECE. News broke the local afternoon of June 11 that the Greek government is totally abolishing the national broadcaster, ERT, which includes the SW service Voice of Greece.

John Babbis, Maryland, received this, google translated:

    ``Dear compatriots.
    The time is 19.00 in Greece and before an hour
    government announced the closure of ERT at 12 midnight.
    We live sadly tragic moments.
    In possession was again closed ERT.
    Seems that came and now the time for padlock ...
    Whatever your message of support
    might help ...

    amicably
    from ERA5 - Voice of Greece
    the station accompany you for years now,
    Natasha Vissarionos``

So the official closure would be at 2100 UT. Not until 2335 could I check the frequencies, and it`s still on the air on 15630, all talk in Greek, no doubt discussing the situation. // 9420 also audible but much weaker. By 0039 UT Jan 12, 9420 is much better and now the third transmitter on 7450 is just barely audible. 0053 still animated discussion in Greek.

It seems that the 2500+ employees of ERT are not accepting this decision and have kept the TV and radio services running. Many other SWLs were checking and found frequent interruptions in the modulations, but so far always coming back. These must now amount to piratical if not clandestine transmissions!

My further chex: 15630 & 9420 with news on the hour at 0100 included an English clip about NSA and also something in German, otherwise all-Greek, 0106 back to the matter at hand; except for brief bits, seems all music has been pre-empted. At 0510, 15630 is still on and audible in Greek, poor-fair, while at 0520, 9420 is very poor. At 1208, 15630 still on with Greek talk, poor signal now.

One site following this story in English, tnx to Marty Delfín, Madrid:
http://www.ekathimerini.com
There has been lots more press about this, and EPT managed to stay online with live video, usually split screen including showing all-night demonstration around their HQ, lots of people milling about, via http://www.ert.gr
Early UT June 12, that was all to the website, except a word at the bottom, epanerchomaste as transliterated, meaning ``we come back``.

Later after 1430 the website appears to be fully restored with lots of news linx and still live video. A very fluid situation; it appears other sectors of society are supporting ERT with strikes, even private commercial stations. So far the demonstration situation is nowhere near as bad as Istanbul, which is getting much more media attention; riot police were supposedly going to break it up in Athens at 0200 UT, but apparently did not (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** GUAM. 5765-USB, June 12 at 1159, nothing detectable from AFN, nor on 13362-USB. Ron Howard observes that both this and Diego Garcia have been rather sporadic lately (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** KOREA NORTH. 11710, June 12 at 1231, piano concerto by a talented artist, probably anonymous; energetic, must be getting sufficient food rations while ordinary citizens may starve. Classical-sounding music from VOK is never recognizable as anything Western, Kim forbid. During low passages, mixture of Juche jamming is audible, but at least not another language; 1236 hyper-assertive Korean announcer implies his abject loyalty. See also CHINA [non]. 13650 (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** MEXICO. Sporadic E finally returns after several days` lull; earlier I was hearing 15825 WWCR inbooming, a good but not 100% reliable tipoff that Es may be reaching VHF.

Turning on the DX TV at 1421 UT June 12, Spanish is in on channel A2 NTSC from the south. Some weird combination of a novela/talk/gameshow. First I bring up the SIPSE live stream video of XHY-TV Mérida but that`s in news from foro tv. At peaks, I`m pretty sure the upper-right bug on A2 is +v, i.e. Más Visión = XEWO-TV Guadalajara.

By 1445 UT the main A2 signal now displays the Azteca-7 bug first in lower right during ads, CCI; 1459 in upper right during talk show.

At 1459 the MUF reaches ch A4 video and audio briefly, and at 1505, even ch A5 making video CCI to some cable leakage radiation I have trouble with on that channel more than others. The ch 5 DX video is in squeeze-o-vision.

At 1506, ch A4 briefly enough to recognize net-5 bug LR with toon.

At 1540 on A2, still mostly net-7 bug UR, talk/gameshow with large title in LR, DIMELO = ``tell it to me``. As usual, most likely 7-on-2 from south is XHTAU Tampico. CCI on ch A2 continues.

At 1614, net 7 on A2 now carrying fútbol and still past 1645. At 1647 a YL is talking about calories and exercises, but still seeing net-7 bug and ESPAÑA HOLANDA on the screen, so evidently during a break in the SBG. Still some A2 CCI past 1700, but gone by 1720 UT (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** MICRONESIA. 4755.5, June 12 at 1158:56*, JBA carrier cuts off automatically from PMA The Cross; neat to be able to detect this half a sesquihour after earliest yearly sunrises here (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. 530, June 12 at 0024 UT check, ``K530AM``, Vance AFB, Enid TIS has finally resumed modulation with the usual quick rotation of national PSAs mostly about safety (keyword: Amanda), and local info about open hours of different Vance gates. I`ve yet to see reports of anyone else hearing this beyond Enid, and googling on the non-call brings up nothing relevant except my own reports (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. 960, June 12 at 0503-0505 UT, the KGWA Enid Fox-hole is deeper than usual, as the KGWA open carrier is weaker than usual; maybe on aux transmitter? Nothing definite to ID, but sounds like usual KMA ABC news and blues music from WABG. Once KGWA resumes modulating at 0505 I can still null it enough to hear the competition, which is never usually the case (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** OKLAHOMA. RF 31 KXOK-LD and RF 32, WQOS306 relaying KXOK Enid, have continued to broadcast black and silence on the two subchannels but still labeled 31-2 M-Fox and 31-3 Azteca whenever checked the last weeks, until: June 12 at 1513 UT, Azteca is back, but still no Mundo Fox. I`m sure this won`t last (Glenn Hauser, Enid, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** PERU. 5980, June 12 at 0101, CRI/Cuba 5990 is off by now but still lots of noise and hash for R. Chaski to combat 10 kHz lower. Yet enough carrier to detect when it cuts off: 0102:22.5* which is 4 seconds later than yesterday; maybe margin of error skewed from usual 5+ (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** PHILIPPINES. 11825, June 12 at 1312, hrustic hmusic hreminds me of hmong, but Aoki shows it`s FEBC in the Khams dialect of Tibetan at 1300-1330 daily (and gone at 1337 recheck), 100 kW, 305 degrees from Bocaue. Surely this should be jammed, but no QRM heard. Or do the ChiCom not bother with Christians trying to convert Tibetans from Buddhism, which is rather entrenched? (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** TAIWAN [non]. E-QSL received from Keith Perron at PCJ, for June 10 00-01 broadcast on 9925 via Nauen, GERMANY, now added to:
http://www.worldofradio.com/QSL.html
or directly at:http://www.w4uvh.net/PCJQSL.pdf
Shows the Nauen rotatable antenna.

Keith says in accompanying note: ``Hi Glenn, You know the Tecsun ad should not have been broadcast to Europe and North America. Tecsun is sponsoring the broadcasts to Southeast Asia and East Asia only. It should have been edited out, but it wasn't. The reason it should not have been broadcast to these regions is because Tecsun makes radio for other suppliers like Eton who put their own name on it.

In Chinese I also sound the same. Only when I do Jazz For The Asking, Media Network +, and Focus Asia Pacific who I try to sound more official [sic]. Just to let you know. We are planning a two day test soon. It will be for Saturday and Sunday at the same time. The Saturday slot will be news and our Ukrainian culture program Nash Holos. Then on Sunday Focus Asia Pacific and Happy Station. Will announce the dates for this soon. 73, Keith``

Maybe same time for some airings, but Nauen 9925 is not available on UT Sundays at 00-02, due to The Mighty KBC (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

** U S A. 12105, June 12 at 1312, 1344, 1401, and finally 1650 chex, WTWW-3 is unusually missing, so in null languages so far today (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)

UNIDENTIFIED. 13654-SSB, approx., weak 2-way in Spanish intruders, June 12 at 1254, too close to 13650 Albania/Korea North het (Glenn Hauser, OK, DX LISTENING DIGEST)